 First edition, with paintingThe Gates of Morning byTed Nasmith | |
| Editor | Jane Chance |
|---|---|
| Author | see text |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Tolkien studies |
| Genre | Scholarly essays |
| Publisher | University Press of Kentucky |
Publication date | 2004 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 340 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8131-2301-1 |
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader is a 2004 collection of scholarly essays onJ. R. R. Tolkien's writings onMiddle-earth, edited byJane Chance. It includes chapters from the established Tolkien scholarsMarjorie Burns,Michael D. C. Drout,Verlyn Flieger,Gergely Nagy,Tom Shippey, andRichard C. West. It was warmly welcomed by critics, though some of the student contributions were considered less useful than the revised journal articles, conference papers and lectures by the more experienced essayists.
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, published by theUniversity Press of Kentucky in 2004, is the second in a series of three essay collections on Tolkien, the other two being the 2003Tolkien the Medievalist and the 2005Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages.[1] The essays are based on a mix of conference papers, lectures, and updated revisions of influential journal articles.[2][1] Ten of the revised conference papers were first presented in 2002 at theInternational Congress on Medieval Studies.[1] The lectures were first delivered byTom Shippey in 1996 and byMichael D. C. Drout in 2003.[1] The four journal articles were first published in the 1980s and 1990s.[1]
Chad Engbers writes inThe Lion and the Unicorn that the essay authors include "the usual suspects", a small number of well-known Tolkien scholars – here "Nagy, Shippey,Burns, Drout,Flieger, andWest" – as well as junior scholars and established scholars from outside of Tolkien studies.[3]
| Part | Author | Discipline | Title | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction | Jane Chance | Medievalist, Tolkien studies | A 'Mythology for England'? | The editor states that it is well known that Tolkien "yearned to create a 'mythology for England'" that would do what mythologies had done for other countries in Europe, but that he was not comfortable withArthurian legend as it was contaminated by French notions ofchivalry, which he "loathed", and it was uncertain "where he turned for models". Accordingly the collection examines his methodology, and thenhis classical,his Old Norse,his Old English, andhis Finnish influences. |
| Backgrounds: Folklore,Religion,Magic, and Language | Michaela Baltasar | Fiction | Tolkien and the rediscovery of myth | Baltasar explores Tolkien's belief in the power of language to create myth, as opposed to the theories of myth held by the folkloristAndrew Lang and the philologistMax Müller. |
| Catherine Madsen | Novelist | Light from an invisible lamp: natural religion inThe Lord of the Rings | Madsen explains how Tolkien creates a "religious feeling" and a sort of natural religion without directly mentioning Christianity. | |
| Mary E. Zimmer | British literature | Creating and re-creating worlds with words: the religion and the magic of language inThe Lord of the Rings | Zimmer discussesTolkien's use of language to create the seemingly solid reality ofMiddle-earth. She discusses the use of names, includingtrue names, with the implication that names and the things they denote are causally linked. | |
| David Lyle Jeffrey | English | Tolkien as philologist | Jeffrey examines Tolkien'sphilological use of names, complete withguidance for translators and others, revealing how Tolkien understood language to work. | |
| Tolkien and Ancient Greek and Classical and Medieval Latin | Gergely Nagy | Tolkien studies | Saving the myths : the re-creation of mythology in Plato and Tolkien | Nagy points up several parallels between how Plato and Tolkien viewed myth. Both wrote myths of their own as if they were real traditions, creating animpression of depth. |
| Sandra Ballif Straubhaar | Germanic studies | Myth, late Roman history, and multiculturalism in Tolkien's Middle-Earth | Straubhaar examines the influence of late Roman history on Middle-earth, as seen in the relationship between the civilised Gondor and the barbarian Rohan, paralleling ancient Rome's growing admiration for its energetic barbarian neighbours, as seen inTacitus's history. | |
| Jen Stevens | Inklings | From catastrophe toeucatastrophe: J.R.R. Tolkien's transformation ofOvid's MythicPyramus and Thisbe intoBeren and Lúthien | Stevens explores the parallels between the tale ofPyramus and Thisbe as told inOvid'sMetamorphoses, and Tolkien's central story ofBeren and Lúthien. | |
| Kathleen E. Dubs | Humanities | Providence, fate, and chance:Boethian philosophy inThe Lord of the Rings | Dubs relates Boethius'sOn the Consolation of Philosophy to Tolkien's presentation ofluck, free will, and fate inThe Lord of the Rings. | |
| Tolkien and Old Norse | Tom Shippey | Philologist, Tolkien studies | Tolkien and the appeal of the pagan:Edda andKalevala | Shippey explains how the IcelandicProse Edda and the FinnishKalevala served Tolkien as models of writings firmly "rooted" in the pagan mythologies of their times and places, complete with the Edda's "northern courage" and theKalevala's sympathy and sadness. |
| Marjorie J. Burns | Medievalist | Norse and Christian gods: the integrative theology of J.R.R. Tolkien | Burns explores parallels between the Norse gods andThe Silmarillion'sValar. The mapping is complex, as for instanceOdin's dark side is inherited byMelkor, while his brighter aspects go to Manwë. | |
| Andy Dimond | Tolkien studies | The twilight of the elves:Ragnarök and the end of the Third Age | Dimond relates the Norse Ragnarök to the War of the Ring. | |
| Andrew Lazo | Inklings | Gathered round northern fires: the imaginative impact of the Kolbítar | Lazo explores the impact of Tolkien's Oxford Old Norse study group the Kolbítar on how Tolkien andC. S. Lewis developed. | |
| Tolkien and Old English | Michael D. C. Drout | English, Tolkien studies | A mythology for Anglo-Saxon England | Drout sets out how Tolkien's study of Anglo-Saxon literature and culture was related to his "pseudohistory", which "solved a number of historical and literary puzzles and was in itself aesthetically pleasing", even though Tolkien did not actually believe it. Drout suggests that Tolkien then deliberately covered over the links between Middle-earth and Anglo-Saxon history. |
| John R. Holmes | English | Oaths and oathbreaking: analogues of Old English Comitatus in Tolkien's myth | Holmes studies Tolkien's use of sworn oaths in Middle-earth, relating this to Germanic and Anglo-Saxon culture. | |
| Alexandra Bolintineanu | Medievalist | On the borders of old stories: enacting the past inBeowulf andThe Lord of the Rings | Bolintineanu compares the purpose of theBeowulf poet's use of embedded stories with Tolkien's inThe Lord of the Rings. The old tales can offer moral guidance, comfort, and a doomed grandeur. | |
| Tolkien and Finnish | Verlyn Flieger | Medievalist Tolkien studies | A mythology for Finland:Elias Lönnrot and J.R.R. Tolkien as mythmakers | Flieger explores why Tolkien should have decided to create a mythology for England, though his would be fictional. She proposes that the inspiration of Lönnrot, and the resultingKalevala, were both important to Tolkien. She suggests further that Tolkien liked the response of artists to theKalevala, and stated that he hoped artists would respond to his own mythology. |
| Richard C. West | Tolkien studies | Setting the rocket off in story: theKalevala as the germ of Tolkien's legendarium | West too looks at theKalevala, describing how the Finnish language nfluenced his Elvish language ofQuenya, and how the mythology seeped into "his mind-set". One concrete similarity is the tragic tale ofTúrin, whose character is developed from that ofKullervo. | |
| David Elton Gay | Folklore | J.R.R. Tolkien and theKalevala: some thoughts on the Finnish origins ofTom Bombadil andTreebeard | Gay argues that the character Väinämöinen in theKalevala influenced both the spirit of placeTom Bombadil in theOld Forest, and the tree-giant, theEntTreebeard, in Fangorn Forest. |
Chad Engbers writes inThe Lion and the Unicorn that the well-known Tolkien scholars write knowledgeably in a style "more expository than polemical". A second category, the weakest in Engbers's view, comprises the junior scholars such as Baltasar, Dimond, and Lazo. He finds Baltasar's essay "like a very respectable graduate paper", whereas Dimond says "too little" and Lazo "says too much". A third category is of scholars and authors with established reputations outside Tolkien studies. He says that Jeffrey writes freshly and well on philology, while the novelist Madsen writes an "incisive and honest" assessment ofChristianity inThe Lord of the Rings. Engbers concludes that while not all the essays are specially useful, "the volume's virtues outnumber its vices".[3]
Carol Leibiger inJournal of the Fantastic in the Arts writes that Drout "elegantly and convincingly" shows Tolkien's way of linking to the Anglo-Saxon period, spanning its culture, history, and language, so as to construct a "pseudohistorical mythology" for England. She finds Nagy's comparison of Tolkien's use of myth with Plato's "fascinating", whereas she feels that Straubhaar's use of two "rabid and uni[n]formed" critics (for her discussion ofTolkien and race) spoils her essay. Of the student essays, she writes that Lazo is "long-winded", full of self-references and mistakes. Leibiger concludes that the volume assembles numerous "important studies of the sources ofTolkien's legendarium".[2]
Margaret Sinex writes inTolkien Studies calls the volume "a superb collection of essays that illuminates Tolkien's own understanding of the nature and function of myth and his process of mythmaking." In her view, it helps the reader to grasp "Tolkien's belief in the creative, generative potency of language".[1] She finds "appealing" Zimmer's essay on Tolkien's "verbal magic"; it explores incantations or "word magic"; two types of "name magic", involving a taboo on the use of proper names, and the changing of a name when a person's nature changes; and the "true name" which causes what it names. Straubhaar's essay is in Sinex's view "convincing" in its argument that thedynastic marriages betweenGondor andRohan reflect thelater Roman Empire's "gradual acceptance of mixed marriages with barbarian tribes on their empire's distant borders."[1]
